Drug and alcohol dependence
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Drug Alcohol Depend · Sep 2013
Randomized Controlled TrialOpioid abusers' ability to differentiate an opioid from placebo in laboratory challenge testing.
Abuse liability assessments influence drug development, federal regulation, and clinical care. One suggested procedure to reduce variability of assessments is a qualification phase, which assesses whether study applicants adequately distinguish active drug from placebo; applicants failing to make this distinction are disqualified. The present analyses assessed differences between qualification phase qualifiers and non-qualifiers. ⋯ Different subjective responses to identical stimuli support the use of a qualification phase in abuse liability assessments. Further research should explore objective measures that may better account for these differences, determine optimal qualification criteria, and explore the developmental course of drug use. This study also documents certain opioid abusers fail to differentiate 30 mg of oxycodone from placebo, a phenomenon deserving further study.
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Drug Alcohol Depend · Sep 2013
Catastrophic thinking and increased risk for prescription opioid misuse in patients with chronic pain.
As a consequence of the substantial rise in the prescription of opioids for the treatment of chronic noncancer pain, greater attention has been paid to the factors that may be associated with an increased risk for prescription opioid misuse. Recently, a growing number of studies have shown that patients with high levels of catastrophizing are at increased risk for prescription opioid misuse. ⋯ Discussion addresses the factors that might place patients with high levels of catastrophizing at increased risk for prescription opioid misuse. The implications of our findings for the management of patients considered for opioid therapy are also discussed.
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Drug Alcohol Depend · Sep 2013
Prescription opioid mortality trends in New York City, 1990-2006: examining the emergence of an epidemic.
The drug overdose mortality rate tripled between 1990 and 2006; prescription opioids have driven this epidemic. We examined the period 1990-2006 to inform our understanding of how the current prescription opioid overdose epidemic emerged in urban areas. ⋯ The distinct epidemiologic profiles exhibited by analgesic and methadone overdose fatalities highlight the need to define drug-specific public health prevention efforts.
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Drug Alcohol Depend · Sep 2013
Tobacco use among Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians/Pacific Islanders, and mixed-race individuals: 2002-2010.
Non-Hispanic Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians/Pacific Islanders (NHs/PIs), and mixed-race individuals are the fastest growing segments of the US population. We examined prevalences and correlates of tobacco use among these understudied groups. Prevalences among whites were included as a comparison. ⋯ These new findings show prevalent tobacco use among NHs/PIs and mixed-race individuals, and highlight the importance of including these populations in future research and reporting.
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Drug Alcohol Depend · Sep 2013
Relationship of opioid prescription sales and overdoses, North Carolina.
In the United States, fatal drug overdoses have tripled since 1991. This escalation in deaths is believed to be driven primarily by prescription opioid medications. This investigation compared trends and patterns in sales of opioids, opioid drug overdoses treated in emergency departments (EDs), and unintentional overdose deaths in North Carolina (NC). ⋯ Temporal trends in sales of prescription opioids correlate with trends in opioid related ED visits. The spatial correlation of opioid sales with ED visit rates shows that opioid sales data may be a timely way to identify high-risk communities in the absence of timely ED data.